The largest sovereign fund called on Palantir to assess human rights compliance

Norway's $2.3 trillion sovereign fund - the world's largest - responding to public pressure, voted in favor of minority shareholder initiatives calling for a human rights impact assessment of Palantir, an IT company cooperating with U.S. intelligence agencies.

Palantir is roughly in the top 20 largest Norwegian sovereign fund positions, Yahoo Finance reminds us.

The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund (Norges Bank Investment Management; NBIM) supported all proposals of minority shareholders of Palantir. Among them are initiatives according to which the IT company will have to study the impact of its activities on the observance of human rights, as well as publish reports on its contributions and donations to political organizations, Bloomberg noted. The vote came ahead of Palantir's annual general meeting scheduled for June 3. NBIM's decision was an exceptional move, as the entity usually tends to side with company management, the agency noted. Last year, the fund followed the boards' recommendations in voting on 94% of all resolutions in the companies it invested in, and voted in favor in only 23% of cases when minority shareholder proposals related to sustainability issues.

While shareholder proposals related to an audit of Palantir's human rights record have little chance of passage - as the IT giant's co-founders Peter Thiel, Alex Karp and Steven Cohen retain perpetual control of the board - Norges Bank Investment Management's decision shows how the world's largest sovereign wealth fund is becoming increasingly politicized and under pressure from the Norwegian public, Bloomberg notes.

By comparison, the Norwegian civil servant owned just 1.22% of the company's shares at the end of last year, giving him just 0.89% of the vote.

Palantir develops software used by governments and corporations to analyze large data sets and has contracts with the CIA, Pentagon, U.S. immigration services, and the Israeli Armed Forces, among others. The organization has become one of the most prominent beneficiaries of growing spending on artificial intelligence and military technology, and its products are used in intelligence, healthcare and logistics, Bloomberg writes.

Due to the specifics of its work in 2026, Palantir has found itself at the epicenter of two high-profile controversial cases of data processing software in the world, TheNextWeb notes. Specifically, Palantir's tools were supplied to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), where critics believe they helped identify people for deportation. In addition, the company's cooperation with the Israeli government has led to accusations that Palantir systems are being used to identify targets in the Gaza Strip. The organization itself has consistently defended its contracts with government agencies, calling its work legitimate and necessary.

Against this background, NBIM's investment in Palantir has previously been openly condemned by the human rights organization Amnesty, as well as a number of Norwegian political parties and public organizations, which, among other things, drew attention to the way in which Palantir's software is used, and pointed to an 84% increase in the number of US immigration detentions using the company's technology, as well as a record number of deaths in US custody since the beginning of 2025.

The Norwegian sovereign fund, as of the end of 2025, owns $5.15 billion worth of Palantir shares, equivalent to about 0.55% of its entire U.S. equity portfolio, Yahoo Finance wrote in February. In total, NBIM owns securities of 1,577 U.S. companies, which puts Palantir roughly in the top 20 of its largest positions, the portal noted. NBIM owns stock in about 7,200 companies and votes on 110,000 resolutions each year at more than 11,000 annual shareholder meetings, according to its official website.

However, Palantir is not the only defense-related position in the fund's history. For example, last summer NBIM "for ethical reasons" - because of Israel's war in Gaza - decided to withdraw from the capital of the American manufacturer of heavy construction and mining equipment Caterpillar (its equipment was used by the Israeli military). Such a move provoked a negative reaction from the US.

Shares of Palantir added 4.5% at the trading on May 29. Since the beginning of the year they are in minus by 15.8%.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor